MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Friday 5/26/17

Alex Wood has been tremendous since entering the starting rotation, but can we trust him in a tough matchup with the Chicago Cubs?

The beauty of daily fantasy baseball is that the top targets are different each and every day. Whether it's the right-handed catcher who destroys left-handed pitching or the mid-range hurler facing a depleted lineup, you're not going to find yourself using the same assets time after time.

While this breaks up the monotony, it can make it hard to decide which players are primed to succeed on a given day. We can help bridge that gap.

In addition to our custom optimal lineups, you can check out our batting and pitching heat maps, which show the pieces in the best spot to succeed on that slate. Put on the finishing touches with our games and lineups page to see who's hitting where and what the weather looks like, and you'll have yourself a snazzy looking team to put up some big point totals. We've also got our Solo Shot Podcast, which breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day. Here's today's episode.

If you need help getting started on that trek, here are some of the top options on the board today.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Max Scherzer ($11,800 on FanDuel): It's yet another year in which Max Scherzer is pitching like one of the best hurlers in the league. There is not a surprised soul to be found. His first nine starts have resulted in a 2.99 SIERA, 32.2% strikeout rate, and 6.8% walk rate. He's still a heavy fly-ball guy, but he counters that by allowing just a 27.0% hard-hit rate. We don't need a good matchup to love Scherzer, but he gets exactly that in facing a San Diego Padres team that ranks 25th in wRC+ against righties with the second-highest strikeout rate. Even on a slate where we want to pay up for big bats, Scherzer's worth the salary.

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